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Wondering Pilgrim

~ the ramblings of a perambulent and often distracted sojourner

Wondering Pilgrim

Tag Archives: environment

The Green Thing – a Senior’s Lament

22 Thursday Sep 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in environment, Personal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

environment, green, postaday2011

A reel lawn mower, adapted from an illustratio...

Image via Wikipedia

As a card carrying environmentalist, I can see the humour in this wry lament sent to me this morning by one of my long-suffering flock, who has herself been involved in several cane-toad busting expeditions in our state’s north east and has spent the last two weeks organising conservation measures on Rottnest Island:

In the line at the store, the cashier told an older woman that she should bring her own grocery bags because plastic bags weren’t good for the environment.

The woman apologised to him and explained, “We didn’t have the green thing back in my day.”
The clerk responded, “That’s our problem today. Your generation did not care enough to save our environment.”

He was right — our generation didn’t have the green thing in its day.

Back then, we returned milk bottles, soft drink bottles and beer bottles to the store. The store sent them back to the plant to be washed and sterilised and refilled, so it could use the same bottles over and over. So they really were recycled.

But we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

We walked up stairs, because we didn’t have an escalator in every store and office building. We walked to the grocery store and didn’t climb into a 300-horsepower machine every time we had to go two blocks.

But she was right. We didn’t have the green thing in our day.

Back then, we washed the baby’s nappies because we didn’t have the throw-away kind. We dried clothes on a line, not in an energy gobbling machine burning up 220 volts — wind and solar power really did dry the clothes. Kids got hand-me-down clothes from their brothers or sisters, not always brand-new clothing. But that young lady is right; we didn’t have the green thing back in our day.

Back then, we had one TV, or radio, in the house — not a TV in every room. And the TV had a small screen the size of a handkerchief (remember them?), not a screen the size of the state of Western Australia ..
In the kitchen, we blended and stirred by hand because we didn’t have electric machines to do everything for us.
When we packaged a fragile item to send in the mail, we used a wadded up old newspaper to cushion it, not Styrofoam or plastic bubble wrap.
Back then, we didn’t fire up an engine and burn petrol just to cut the lawn. We used a push mower that ran on human power. We exercised by working so we didn’t need to go to a health club to run on treadmills that operate on electricity.

But she’s right; we didn’t have the green thing back then.
We drank from a fountain when we were thirsty instead of using a cup or a plastic bottle every time we had a drink of water.
We refilled writing pens with ink instead of buying a new pen, and we replaced the razor blades in a razor instead of throwing away the whole razor just because the blade got dull.

But we didn’t have the green thing back then.

Back then, people took the tram, train or a bus and kids rode their bikes to school or walked instead of turning their mums into a 24-hour taxi service.
We had one electrical outlet in a room, not an entire bank of sockets to power a dozen appliances. And we didn’t need a computerised gadget to receive a signal beamed from satellites 2,000 miles out in space in order to find the nearest pizza joint.

But isn’t it sad the current generation laments how wasteful we old folks were just because we didn’t have the green thing back then?

Related Articles
  • “The Green Thing” (greenflbroker.com)
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Our need to know keeps us from learning so much…

08 Friday Jul 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in environment, reconciliation

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

carbon tax, environment, Indigenous People, NAIDOC, postaday2011

Cover of "Native Wisdom for White Minds"

Cover of Native Wisdom for White Minds

Begin to care for nature and nature cares for you, in unsuspected ways – Bill Neidjie, Aboriginal elder and author of Kakadu Man.

On the eve of the climax of the great angst – the PM’s announcement of the details of the Carbon Tax package – we hear more wisdom from the earth’s indigenous peoples.

In our sophistication we need to know the “payoff” for each new initiative – even when returning to conservation principles. All our questions need to be answered.

Native Wisdom for White Minds makes the point that such questions never arise with indigenous peoples. Where the care of nature is concerned they simply start the necessary action. Our “need to know” often stops us from beginning.

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Grim statistics

22 Wednesday Jun 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal

≈ 2 Comments

Tags

Cape Grim, CSIRO, environment, Greenhouse gas, postaday2011

 

 

CSIRO scientists have established a raw data page to counter accusations that their work is “not real science” – see it at aptly named Cape Grim Data.

I guess it is very difficult to communicate objective, uninterpreted information when the population is caught up in an emotive and political ideological storm surrounding the proposed carbon emissions tax scheme. Anything that supports or detracts from the other side’s argument becomes ammunition for hyperbole and innuendo and those who drift by the cross-hairs become fair game.

Kudos to the CSIRO scientists for making the attempt.

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Climate change rallies around Oz today

05 Sunday Jun 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in environment, Personal, theology

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

carbon tax, environment, John 17:1-11, postaday2011

Global annual fossil fuel carbon dioxide emiss...

Image via Wikipedia

News feeds are starting to come in as Australian state capitals host “Say yes” rallies in support of the government’s proposed carbon emissions tax.

Here’s one feed featuring a speech by World Vision CEO  Tim Costello:  Australia ‘seen as climate freeloader’.

The timing of the rallies clashed with this morning’s church services, but we finished giving just sufficient time for supporters to leave and join the anticipated throng meeting at Perth’s cultural centre. Of course, opponents of the tax were present in our worship service as well.

We attempted to filter these differences, partly symptomatic of the wedge politics that presently plagues public discourse, through John 17:1-11 featuring the opening sentences of Jesus’ prayer that those who follow him might be one.

We noted that genuine followers of Jesus, for different reasons, might find themselves facing each other from opposing rallies today. The tough challenge they face is to slice through the general rhetoric and name-calling to discover common ground – for there are concerns shared by both sides of the argument. Christ left a marker by which his followers would recognise one another – the spirit of love that unifies one another as the Son and the Father. Such love will be marked by a concern for the common good which includes a sustainable environment for future generations and due alleviation of hardship for the most vulnerable of the present generation.

We may see folk we know on tonight’s TV news. Let’s hope they’re being friendly!

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A puzzling question about carbon taxes…

30 Monday May 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal

≈ 1 Comment

Tags

carbon tax, Cate Blanchett, environment, postaday2011

How come Cate Blanchett is vilified for speaking into the carbon tax debate and ever-so-much-more-wealthy mining barons are free to complain loudly while media companies sycophantly bend over backwards to ensure they are heard?

Debating Global Warming…

12 Tuesday Apr 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in environment, Personal

≈ 6 Comments

Tags

climate change, environment, global warming, postaday2011

Attribution of climate change, based on Meehl ...

Image via Wikipedia

… is not my favourite pastime as people’s minds are generally made up and difficult to sway. As a flunkee in high school physics I’m somewhat behind the eight-ball when countering climate skeptics’ arguments. What I can argue, however, is human responsibility to care for the planet. When someone gleefully seeks to trump this argument with the observation that the Genesis mandate is to “subdue” the earth (Gen 1:28), I can counter with a Hebrew word study that suggests “understanding” and “walking amongst” as a counterpoint to the violence we habitually associate with the word “subdue” – in other words it carries a benevolent relational flavour.

Anyhow Arguments from Global Warming Skeptics and what the science really says is a most excellent resource for scientific ignoramuses such as myself. I might just point my friendly adversaries there.

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Demonising the Greens – Eureka Street

28 Monday Mar 2011

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in environment, Personal, Wembley Downs

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

environment, green, parliament, postaday2011

Demonising the Greens – Eureka Street.

This thoughtful article reflects some of the healthy tensions in my own church community comprising robust and articulate adherents across the whole range of the political spectrum. Having just entered a solar-energy package that benefits both our local church and its adherents through our environmental policy (and the pragmatic demands of fiscal realities), I guess we lean more to green. But the fact that the politically more conservative among us can support green decisions that make good sense to them (and vice versa) demonstrates that there are community contexts where media promoted political divides are continually breached. Would that this was reflected in parliament and that sound bi-partisan policy could be debated and enacted on a range of issues that are now polarised and entrenched along party lines.

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H2O

15 Friday Oct 2010

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

Adelaide, Business, Drinking water, environment, Google, South Australia, Water, Water resources

It’s Blog Action Day and the topic is “water.”

I grew up with a love/hate relationship with the stuff. Loved playing with it. Hated the enforced swimming lesson that entailed jumping off the Port Adelaide wharf into the canal on the end of a rope. Swallowed lots of water and never went back. Never learnt to swim  after such a dis-motivational experience. Yet I find holidays by the water very restful – whether its pounding waves against a rocky cliff-face or a still mill-pond.

I guess this  reflects the ambivalence we have in this land that thirsts for decent rainfalls – most of the time there’s not enough. Suddenly there’s too much. Like Hanrahan, there’s the prevailing mood that “we’ll all be rooned.” As a son of South Australia, once nominated as “the driest state in the driest country”, I suppose I should be somewhat more passionate about water. After all, the Murray flows now following superlatively high rainfalls, but the water fights upstream look set to continue for a while. My hometown of Adelaide will always be at the behest of access to water “allowed” to flow from the the east.

Yet my thoughts turn to other places on the planet where the need for water is not so easily met. It’s always been close at hand for me. Just turn on the nearest tap which is never far way. Thousands of communities have no access at all to potable water, let alone the convenience of a tap. For some years now my Google home page has been set to http://www.wateraid.org/australia/ – a running background reminder to just how critical water is for maintaining healthy sustainable communities. This is just one of many aid organisations aimed at improving provision of this most basic of commodities.

I hope this Blog Action Day project will heighten awareness and stimulate international and political will for imaginative solutions to water access problems.

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Taxing against Climate Change

08 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in environment, international politics

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

climate change, COP15, Copenhagen, environment, Tobin Tax

Neither Prime Minister Rudd nor Opposition Leader Abbot sponsor policies that deal adequately with climate change challenges. Inevitably, the politics of funding gets in the way. A Eureka Street article by Peter Hodge points to a possible solution called the “Tobin Tax” – a tax on foreign currency transactions.

“Set at a tiny 0.005 per cent (the most commonly cited rate), the tax could collect around $76 billion each year, although estimates vary significantly. The funds could assist developing countries cope with the effects of climate change and finance the necessary technological adaptations; it is unlikely any legally binding climate agreement that includes most developing countries will be signed without such commitments.” (Hodge)

I guess it would be ever so slightly irritating for those of us who buy books on Amazon, but it would be a tax less worth grumbling about if we knew it was invested in  constructive solutions to protect developing countries from the effects of climate change catastrophe.

Not that this alone would address our global ecological responsibilities – incentives for renewable energy sources and reduction of carbon emissions would still be on the table, but funding arguments would differ.

I wonder if  economists and accountants who are much more qualified than I would be prepared to discuss the merits of such a solution?

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Geothermal energy in Perth heralds PlanetPrayer

04 Friday Dec 2009

Posted by wonderingpilgrim in Personal

≈ Leave a comment

Tags

climate change, COP15, Copenhagen, environment, global warming

Great to see Norman Moore’s annoucement that  geothermal energy is to be implemented as a viable alternative for the cooling of Perth.

In the meantime and on the eve of COP15, the UN climate change summit in Copenhagen, PlanetPrayer begins its daily prayer cycle. You can subscribe for a daily email that includes environmental care tips, relevant scriptures, liturgy, stories and a daily prayer. Todays, prayer is:

Gracious and loving Creator,
Help us to stand against the culture of our times
where people speak cordially with people they meet while living lives that will destroy the lives of people they will never meet;
where institutions show no regard for the works of the Lord and what his hands have done;
where corporations are getting fat by consuming our children’s inheritance,
We ask that you transform them to respond to your divine calling and regard your creation with reverence.
Guide the leaders of the nations to find ways to support the earth.

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